Argentina's last military dictator jailed over role in Operation Condor

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Argentina's last military dictator jailed over role in Operation Condor

Reynaldo Bignone sentenced to 20 years in prison for his part
in running international death squad in 1970s and 80s

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Friday 27 May 2016 23.20 BST

Argentina’s last military dictator, 88-year-old former general Reynaldo Bignone, was today sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in Operation Condor, under which an international death squad was set up by six South American military dictatorships during the 1970s and 80s. The plan allowed death squads from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to cross into one another’s territory to kidnap, torture and kill political opponents who had fled across the border.

Most of the 105 cases of “illegal arrest” followed by death covered by the trial involved foreign nationals – 45 Uruguayans, 22 Chileans, 13 Paraguayans and11 Bolivians – killed while living in exile in Argentina.

Persecuted for political reasons in the military regimes in their own countries, many had escaped to Argentina before 1976, when the country became the last of the six nations to fall under a dictatorship. After their arrest, the victims were made to “disappear”, usually by being cremated, or thrown drugged but still alive from military planes into the Atlantic Ocean.

“This ruling is important because it is the first time the existence of Operation Condor has been proved in court,” said Luz Palmás Zaldúa, lawyer for the Argentinian human rights group Cels (Centre for Social and Legal Studies), which represented the victims’ families. “It is also the first time that former members of Condor have been sentenced for forming part of this criminal organisation.”

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/27/argentinas-last-military-dictator-jailed-over-role-in-operation-condor

[forest444]

1. Unrepentant to the end, he considered his trials (and the Kirchners) part of a "subversive plot."

Thank you, Eugene, for posting this. These news are especially significant because they mark the first time a court has proved that Operation Condor was carried out as a criminal conspiracy by the U.S.-backed dictatorships at the time (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay).

The Kissinger klub, if you will.

I should note though that Bignone has been in jail since 2010, condemned for his role in the detention camp set up at the Campo de Mayo Army base (which he oversaw at the time); of the 4,000 prisoners detained at the facility during his 1976–78 tenure, 50 survived.

He's also been convicted on other charges, notably for his role in using a hospital basement as a torture dungeon and for the sale of newborn babies belonging to detained women.

In his defense Bignone did, as president in 1982-83, restore political and labor rights (legalizing demonstrations and strikes), undid much of the damage to wages from the other three dictators, brought down astronomical interest rates against the wishes of the banks, and called elections over opposition from hard-liners in the military (a "democratic exit," as he referred to it).

A man of considerable duality, one might say. He does, nevertheless, very much deserve his prison term(s). He should share his cell with his fellow Operation Condor plotter: Henry Kissinger.